Office Move Risk Assessment Guide

An office move always looks straightforward on paper. Desks go into crates, cables are labelled, a removal team turns up on Friday evening and everyone logs in at the new address on Monday morning. In practice, the plan meets a goods lift that is out of service, a loading bay that is already occupied and a colleague who tries to lift a filing cabinet alone. A risk assessment finds those problems while they are still cheap to fix.

This guide gives London office managers a simple, defensible method that can be completed in an afternoon and updated as the move takes shape.

Why assess the risk at all

There are three reasons to do this properly.

First, you have a duty. Employers in the UK have a general responsibility to assess risks to their staff and to anyone else affected by their work, and a move is work. Visitors, contractors, cleaners and the removal crew all count. You do not need to quote a regulation to meet this duty; you need to show that you thought about the hazards and did something sensible about them.

Second, the building will probably ask for it. Many managed buildings in central London will not release a goods lift or loading bay until they have seen a method statement and risk assessment. Having yours ready speeds that conversation up.

Third, it protects the business. Lost working time is the real cost of a move, and a move that overruns because nobody checked the lift costs far more than the removal itself. Most of these failures are foreseeable.

Who is responsible

Responsibility usually sits with three parties, and the assessment should say which is which.

• The employer, normally through the office manager or facilities lead, owns the overall assessment, the staff briefing and the decisions about what moves and when.
• The removal company owns the safe handling of goods, its crew, its vehicles and its own method statement. A professional mover will produce a RAMS document on request. Removals Nationwide prepares one as part of pre-move planning for its office removals when a building requires it, so ask for it at the survey stage.
• The building management or landlord owns the common parts: lifts, loading bays, fire routes and access hours at both addresses.

Write these names down. A risk with no owner is a risk nobody controls.

The main risk areas

For each area below, note the hazard, who could be harmed, what you already do about it and what more you will do.

People and manual handling

The most common injuries on any move come from lifting, pushing and pulling. Staff who are not trained movers should not carry furniture, monitors or full crates. Set a clear rule: staff pack their own desk contents into crates and leave them on the floor, and the crew does the rest. Keep walkways clear, cap crate weights at what one person can lift comfortably, and brief everyone before packing day.

IT and data

Servers, switches and storage devices are the highest-value items on the inventory and the hardest to replace at short notice. Agree who disconnects and labels the equipment (usually your IT lead), how it is packed (anti-static crates, cabling bundled and labelled) and the order it is loaded and unloaded. Verify backups before anything is powered down. Track equipment holding personal data item by item from old desk to new desk.

Building access and lifts

Check lift dimensions and weight limits at both addresses against your largest items. Confirm goods lift booking times, loading bay reservations and out-of-hours access arrangements in writing with both building teams. Find out whether lift servicing or a fire alarm test is scheduled on your move date.

Furniture and fragile items

Height-adjustable desks, glass partitions, large meeting tables and framed artwork each need a plan. Decide what will be dismantled and by whom, what needs wrapping in situ and what will not fit through the route at the destination. List separately anything the crew must not move, such as leased printers under a maintenance contract.

Timing and business continuity

Decide what the business needs to be working, and by when. If the answer is "everything by 9am Monday", the move needs to happen out of hours with IT loaded first and unloaded first. Phased moves over several evenings or weekends spread the risk, with interim storage holding items not needed in the first phase. Identify the point of no return: the time after which you cannot roll back to the old office.

Parking and street access in London

Many commercial streets in London are permit controlled, loading bays are shared and some roads have timed restrictions. Parking suspensions must be applied for with the relevant borough several working days before move day. Check for red routes, School Streets timings and planned roadworks on the approach to either address. A vehicle that cannot park outside the door adds carrying distance, time and risk to every crate.

A simple likelihood and impact method

You do not need specialist software. Score each hazard on two scales from 1 to 3 and multiply.

Score	Likelihood	Impact
1	Unlikely on this move	Minor delay or inconvenience
2	Could reasonably happen	Injury needing first aid, damage or a half-day delay
3	Likely without action	Serious injury, data loss or a lost working day

A score of 1 or 2 can be accepted with normal care. A score of 3 or 4 needs a named control and an owner. A score of 6 or 9 should stop you until the control is in place. Record the score before and after your controls to show the risk has been reduced, not just noted.

Controls that work

Most office move risks respond to the same handful of controls.

• Use a professional crew and let them do the lifting. Insurance should be included: Removals Nationwide covers every booking with goods-in-transit and public liability insurance, and a free on-site survey confirms access and dismantling requirements before anything is quoted.
• Hire proper crates rather than cardboard. Lidded plastic crates stack safely, protect contents and cut down on loose items. See crate hire for IT and document crates.
• Have the crew pack fragile and awkward items. A packing service removes the temptation for staff to do it badly on a Friday afternoon.
• Book the lifts, bays and suspensions in writing, and keep the confirmations in your move file.
• Load IT first and unload it first, under the direction of your IT lead.
• Use storage for anything that does not need to be at the new address on day one. Removals Nationwide runs a 24/7 CCTV-monitored facility at Purfleet, which suits phased moves and short-notice relocations.
• Name one person on your side and one on the mover's side as the point of contact for the whole move.

Office move risk assessment checklist

Use this as the final pass before you sign off the plan.

• Every hazard above has a named owner.
• Staff have been briefed on what they may and may not lift.
• Lift sizes, weight limits and booking times are confirmed at both addresses.
• Loading bay or parking suspension is confirmed for both addresses.
• The IT disconnect, labelling, loading and reconnection order is agreed and written down.
• Backups have been verified before power-down.
• Dismantling list and "do not move" list are agreed with the crew.
• Interim storage is booked for anything not moving in phase one.
• Insurance details and the mover's method statement are on file.
• The point of no return and the rollback plan are written down.
• Scores have been recorded before and after controls.

A risk assessment does not need to be long. It needs to be honest, owned and read by the people doing the work. If you would like a surveyor to walk the route with you and produce the method statement alongside a fixed quote, book a free survey. The service runs 7 days a week, so both the survey and the move can fit around your working hours.